Grievar's Blood

Book 2: The Combat Codes

by Alexander Darwin

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Cyberpunk; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

The second book in an action-packed science fiction trilogy set on a far future world where the fate of nations is determined by battle-hardened warriors who are trained to compete in brutal single combat.

In a world where single combat determines the fate of nations, the Grievar fight in the Circles so that the rest can remain at peace. But given the stakes, things are never so simple. The Daimyo govern from the shadows and plot to gain an edge by unnaturally enhancing their Grievar Knights.

Cego and his team return to the world’s most prestigious combat school, The Lyceum. Though he'd like to focus on his martial studies, Cego feels the pull of his mysterious past and two missing brothers.

Solara Halberd, daughter of the fighting legend, embarks on her own quest to bury the past. She must utilize every lesson her father taught her to explore unknown lands where evil lurks in the shadows.

Release date: December 5, 2023

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 464

Sample

The Grievar who does not serve will be lost. All martial prowess shall be acquired for the purpose of serving the greater good of society, standing in the Circle in the stead of lord or nation. The Grievar who strays from the path of servitude will quickly find themselves stumbling in the thicket, tripped up by vice and lure.

Passage One, Ninth Precept of the Combat Codes

The eerie rays of the blackshift blanketed the Underground, sending most Deep folk homeward. Servicers, planters, and diggers trudged back to their hovels, ready to sleep and begin again at the rise of the rubellium dawn.

Some Deep folk did not return home for blackshift. Some gambled and drank away their meager wages at the all-night Circles, where gaudy lights and raucous cheers advertised blood and glory. Some bit-rich patrons spent their nights within the Courtesan Houses, under the hazy fog of honey-sweet perfumes and intoxicating neurogens.

Some did not have a home to return to.

A bottle clashed to the hard pavement, reflecting the neon glow of an overhead bar sign. The big man’s head rocked to the side, his eyes rolling back in his skull.

A street urchin scrunched his nose as he rifled through the unconscious man’s pockets. He reached in close, getting a whiff of the sour ale and crusted bits of vat-meat entangled in the man’s wiry beard.

The kid’s dirt-covered fingers pinched something hard: a square onyx piece. He smiled and pulled away.

“Big Grievar…” the boy whispered. “You be stinkin’.”

Suddenly, a gnarled root of a hand latched on to the kid’s wrist. A single piercing yellow eye shone out from the cowl of a cloak.

“Agh!” the urchin gasped, dropping the onyx bit and turning tail into the alley’s shadows.

The big man moaned. He looked down at the onyx before hurling it after the kid.

“Take the darkin’ thing!” the man shouted. “Buy me another drink while you’re busy thieving my bits!”

He stumbled to his feet and used the wall to steady himself, before pulling down his trousers and releasing his bladder.

“Darkin’ kids…” he muttered as the sound of his spray echoed in the back alley.

Another shadow joined the man’s on the brick wall beneath the neon lights.

“Come back for more, thief?” the man growled. “Think I’m so slow I won’t rattle your head this time?”

He pulled his pants up and turned around. It was not the street kid standing in front of him. His eyes widened.

“Hello, Murray.”

Murray zipped his trousers up, uncaring that he was standing in a puddle of his own piss. He stared at the old man in the alleyway.

Farmer.

“Don’t care if you’re a darkin’ ghost, give a man some privacy while he takes a piss next time.” Murray slurred the words, still feeling the drink in him.

He staggered away from the neon glow of the bar sign, toward the darkness of the alley where the Underground’s sweepers pushed discarded trash.

He began to dig through a pile while the old man stood silently and watched.

“Think you know something about me?” Murray turned and spat as he tossed aside a chewed-up fruit husk.

The ghost was still there.

“Wherever the dark you been, don’t care,” Murray said.

Farmer returned Murray’s stare. He raised a hand to his mouth and barked a wet cough.

The old man looked frail, wasted away.

“I know I look like shit, but you’ve got me beat,” Murray said as he turned and set back to digging through the trash heap.

He tossed a corroded can into the shadows, and a swarm of bats fluttered from their roost toward the cavern ceiling thousands of feet above.

“There we go!” Murray yelled as he dug his hand into the refuse down to the elbow and pulled out the black onyx bit.

Farmer stared at him, unmoving.

“I’m going to get a drink,” Murray said as he brushed past the old man, stepping back under the neon light and into the dingy bar beyond it.

Murray walked straight to the counter and slammed the onyx bit onto it.

“Same stuff.”

The Grunt barkeep sniffed the air before sliding an ale to Murray. “You smell like a Deep rat nest.”

“Don’t tell me you care, Tlik.” Murray downed half the glass and slouched forward to watch the blurry SystemView feed set above.

A cloak brushed against his arm. Farmer sat beside him, the old man’s eyes tracking Murray from beneath his cowl.

“Don’t darkin’ judge me, ghost,” Murray said. “I know where you’ve been. I know what you’ve done.”

Farmer didn’t say anything; he sat there. Just like the way he used to fight.

Farmer had trained Murray along with the rest of the Citadel’s veteran Grievar Knights. The man would wait for the slightest opening and give nothing before. And then it’d be over.

“You don’t think I know what you’re doing?” Murray yelled as he stood, towering above both the barkeep and Farmer. “You think I give a shit you’ve come back from the dead?”

“Settle down, Pearson,” the Grunt said wearily. “Don’t want to have to ask you to leave again. Why don’t you take that table over in the corner?”

Murray grabbed his ale and stalked across the dim room, nearly empty besides a pair of hawkers dealing at the far end of the bar. He threw his bulk into a seat at the corner table and called back. “Two more, Tlik.”

Farmer drifted across the floor and sat beside Murray. He pulled the cowl from his head.

Though Murray certainly wasn’t a specimen of health, he couldn’t help but frown, looking at his old coach. This was the man who had trained Murray, taught him nearly all he knew, acted a father to him.

Farmer’s cheekbones seemed to want to burst from his ashen skin. The burning eyes Murray remembered were now dulled, like candles starved for air.

“What was it like?” Murray asked. “Being in there.”

“You’ve trained in the Sim.” Farmer’s voice was parched, barely a whisper. “You know what these machinations are like.”

“I’ve trained in the Sim, but I’ve not lived more than a decade of my life in it.” Dormant anger bubbled up within Murray. “I’ve not stepped into the darkness, floating there in some tube, letting the Bit-Minders have their way with my path.”

Farmer broke into a spasm of coughing. He took a sip of the ale Tlik had placed on the table to calm the fit.

“It seems a long time I was gone, but within the darkness, it was only a heartbeat,” Farmer said. “To me, it was only yesterday when I was at the Citadel in my prime, leading the Knights alongside Memnon.”

“How… how the dark did you get out?” Murray asked, downing another ale, not knowing if he wanted to know the answer.

“The Cradle where I trained the brood,” Farmer said. “The Bit-Minders deemed it to be a flawed environment. They told me it was unlikely to turn out champions, as the program was designed for. And so, they released me from my service.”

Murray’s grip tightened on his glass. “I know. One of them, thing named Zero, told me as much. I paid him a visit at the Codex Surface-side. He said the Daimyo planned on deleting the program, getting rid of the kids hooked up to it still.”

Farmer nodded. “This is true.”

Murray’s jaw clenched, the anger bubbling up again. “Always the same. Treating these kids like things to be bought and sold, tossed out when they aren’t needed. And you, right in the middle of it. I used to admire you. I used to—”

“I accept my fault,” Farmer said. “My intentions were to help guide the kids within the Cradle, teach them the Codes so that they might be more than killing machines. But I was misguided in what I could do in such a place. I did not understand what little effect my nurturing would have when the Minders were in control of the environment.”

“Maybe death would have been best for them,” Murray growled. “Better than floating in a tube, getting used by all.”

“Perhaps,” Farmer whispered.

“Why did you come here?” Murray was weary. He stood, wanting to get out, away from this ghost.

The old man hacked again. “Murray, I’m working for one of the lords down here—”

Murray slammed his empty glass down on the table, shattering it. “You’re a darkin’ merc now, working for some soap-eater? Farmer, the greatest coach to grace the Citadel, now wiping some lord’s ass?”

“And you?” Farmer asked, staring up at Murray’s swaying body. “I came to see you because I heard you’d come Deep. I know why you came down here, Murray. But look at yourself. You’re a mess.”

“Forget me,” Murray whispered, staring off into the shadows of the bar. “Dark it all. I’m done with it.”

He began to walk toward the door.

“Murray!” Farmer barked after him. “The path still lies before you. The Codes are still within you.”

Murray didn’t turn around.

When a Grievar begins their martial journey, they must seek to tame their wildness in order to achieve seamless technique. However, once a level of mastery has been achieved, the fighter must rekindle the chaotic nature of their being to remain unpredictable against trained opponents.

Passage Two, One Hundred Eighth Precept of the Combat Codes

The beat of the drums reverberated in Cego’s skull as he stood on his toes to get a better view.

“They be coming,” Knees said from beside him; the Venturian was at least a head taller than Cego and able to peer over the crowd.

Cego felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Joba, his behemoth of a friend, was peering down at him. Joba pointed up to his own shoulder, where Abel was serenely perched.

“Cego, come here,” little Abel yelled over the din of the crowd in his enthusiastic manner. “I see it all from here—wonderful!”

“Umm… are you sure, Joba?” Cego asked sheepishly. “I don’t want to weigh you down or anything.”

The huge boy smiled silently and reached down with one hand to scoop Cego up with ease, plopping him on his other shoulder across from Abel and well above the crowd.

From his new vantage, Cego could see the Myrkonian march.

Throngs of the long-bearded Grievar marched over the entry bridge of the Citadel, striding to the beat of their fight drums. They were stout, proud, and nearly naked despite the chill in the air. The Northmen chanted to match the percussion of the drums, their deep baritone voices carrying through the outer grounds.

Cego looked toward the center of the formation, where several men hefted a platform atop their shoulders with a pair of wide drums set atop it. Two boys stood in front of the drums and landed punches, elbows, kicks, and even head butts against the leathery skins in a percussive rhythm.

“Wonderful!” Abel exclaimed again from Joba’s other shoulder.

Cego couldn’t help but smile. Abel was right to be amazed; the way the two boys moved congruously, fighting the drums in front of them, was a feat of precision and timing.

The formation of near two hundred Myrkonians approached Cego’s perch. He could see they were all heavily fluxed, even the boys, swirling tattoos moving across their bodies with the rhythm of the march.

“Dozer would be enjoying this,” Knees shouted from below. “The drums, people hitting things, naked folk all around him…”

Cego chuckled. His friend Dozer had had some unfortunate disciplinary troubles at the end of last semester; the big kid was caught red-handed in the professors’ meal quarters, halfway through feasting on their rations for the entire week. As punishment, Dozer had been cut from coming out today to watch the march.

“Sol also would have enjoyed,” Abel said with a frown on his face.

Cego’s thoughts drifted to his other missing teammate: Solara Halberd. The fiery-haired girl likely would have been citing a plethora of facts about the Myrkonians. Cego felt the pit in his stomach and shook his head.

He turned his attention back to the procession. Across the throng of Myrkonians, he could see the high stands set up for the Citadel’s faculty and council. He could make out the high commander’s broad, straight-backed figure, and though he couldn’t see Memnon’s face, Cego was dead sure the man wasn’t smiling.

Beside the Grievar council, set higher up, were the ceremonial chairs of Ezo’s Daimyo Governance. Some of the ornate thrones were empty, but at least a few of the Daimyo representation had come to welcome the Myrkonians to the Citadel.

Cego was jarred from his thoughts as silence enveloped the grounds. The drums had suddenly stopped, along with the procession. The Northmen now stood directly below the Citadel’s council members.

A thickly muscled giant of a Grievar, his red beard tied in tassels, stepped out of formation. Tattoos swirled across his naked body, icy blues and blacks coursing his arms and legs, as if one could see his arteries pumping blood.

“He be as wide as I am tall,” Knees muttered from below.

“Agh!” the man bellowed as he struck his bare chest several times. The entire contingent of Myrkonians behind him followed suit, screaming in unison.

The man advanced toward the council stand, keeping his blue eyes locked on to Commander Memnon. He lifted a hand in front of his face, as if displaying it, as he removed several black rings from his fingers.

The Northman suddenly grabbed his middle finger with his opposite hand and wrenched it violently backward, cracking it at the joint. The man then proceeded to snap each of the fingers on one of his hands, followed by two fingers on his second hand.

Commander Memnon stood from his chair as he watched the bizarre spectacle.

The Northman finally spoke, his accent thick and his voice booming. “Ye Ezonians have welcomed us here, to your home. I give ye seven of me fingers. For ye be taking seven of me boys under your wing.”

From within the Myrkonian procession, seven boys came forward to stand beside the giant man. Cego recognized two of the boys as those who had been striking the drums during the march.

“My name is Tharsis Bertoth,” the man continued. “But where we hail from, names is not important. We Myrkonians are all of the ice blood, born from the Frost Mother. My boys standing here, they’ll eat your foods, sleep up high in your wooden beds, and hear your fancy southern words. My boys, they’ll fight and bleed for ye in the Circle. But they’ll not bend the knee to ye. Or to your Daimyo lords up there. None of us will, ever.”

Tharsis directed his icy stare toward the Daimyo politiks in the high stands.

Commander Memnon waited for Tharsis to pause before responding. “Tharsis Bertoth, you and your people are welcome within our Citadel’s walls. We embrace you fighting men of the North as our brothers and your brood as our own. I can assure you we’ll treat your boys with honor and respect, and teach them our ways to become better fighters for the return to their northern home.”

The response seemed to satisfy the giant man. A smile cut across his bearded face. “Now that the arse-kissing be done, let’s have some fun, eh?”

Memnon looked down at the man, wariness in his eyes. “What have you in mind, Tharsis?”

“Well, we’ll be needing some fists flying to get things started. And my men need their bellies full of drink.”

“Of course,” Memnon responded, obviously prepared. He waved his hand and several Grunt servicers moved into sight from below the partitions, each pulling a wagon full of barrels. The Grunts unloaded the barrels in front of the Myrkonians and screwed a spout into the top of each.

“Enough of our famed Highwinder Ale to fill all your men three times over,” Memnon said. “And, as far as combat, we have one of our Knights ready to face your champion of choice.”

Tharsis lifted a barrel over his head and took a long swig, dark froth covering his beard. He wiped his face with his broken hand, the fingers dangling. “Eh… but we all be here for the brood. That’s what this be about, growing the next of blood to be right-standing Grievar. I say we put one of each of our boys up in the Circle.”

Memnon seemed surprised. “I understand your sentiment, but we really haven’t prepared any of our students for combat right here, right now.”

“You’re saying here, at Ezo’s famed Lyceum, no boy be ready to stand and fight? What’re they doing all this time, knitting scarves for their matties?”

The chorus of Northmen laughed loudly.

“Enough.” Cego had heard Memnon like this before: put to a challenge and unlikely to back down. “I was simply saying we’d prepared a Grievar Knight from our team on this occasion. As is the practice for any exhibition bout when we have visiting dignitaries. But of course our students are more than ready for any of your boys.”

“Ah, that’s what I like to hear!” the big Myrkonian yelled. “Now I’ll show ye how we in the North choose which of our boys be takin’ to the Circle!”

Tharsis turned to his fellow Northmen and raised his hands to the air. “We from the frost are one. We from the frost choose as one. Raise your voices and let the Frost Mother’s wish be heard!”

The contingent of Myrkonians bellowed all at once—but different names. To Cego, it sounded like a chaotic chorus, indecipherable what name anyone was yelling. The Myrkonians came to a crescendo, each man trying to bellow his name choice as loud as possible, before the chaos receded. Cego could now make out only two names being called, a back-and-forth volley between two groups of Myrkonians. Finally, all the Northmen were yelling one name in unison, a deep rumbling that seemed to shake the ground.

“Rhodan Bertoth!”

One of the drumming boys stepped forward from his companions. He bore a striking resemblance to Tharsis Bertoth. Though the boy didn’t have a beard yet like his father, his hair hung in long tassels down his back, and the majority of his body was already fluxed with tattoos.

“I take to the Circle, with the Frost Mother beneath me!” the boy yelled, meeting his father’s eyes.

Memnon turned to Callen Albright, the Scout commander at his side, and whispered something in his ear. The two appeared to be in discussion for several moments.

“I wouldn’t be the one wanting to fight that boy, on these grounds in front of the entire Lyceum,” Knees said. “Though, if Dozer were here, no doubt he’d be running up there right now to take it.”

“It would be a great honor to be chosen to represent our whole school,” Abel chimed in from Joba’s other shoulder, to which the huge boy nodded in agreement.

Chatter began to spread throughout the crowd of Lyceum students, wondering who would be chosen to fight Rhodan Bertoth.

Commander Memnon held his hand to the air, and the chatter died. “In respect for our guests from the North, we’ve decided to honor their own custom of name choice. We’ve brought them here, to the Citadel, and their boys will be taking on many of our customs during the next semester, so it only seems right that we do the same.”

The crowd buzzed again.

Memnon held his hand up. “And we’ll be choosing only from our pool of Level One to Level Four students, who are of similar age to Rhodan. It would be unfair if one of our older, more experienced students stood in against him.”

Cego saw Tharsis snort at that mention as a wry smile rose on the younger Bertoth’s lips.

“So, let’s get this going,” Memnon said to the students in attendance. “On my mark, raise your voice with your name choice to represent the Lyceum on this day.”

Cego’s mind flashed with possibilities. Of course, a Level Three or Level Four student would be preferable, given Level Ones were too young and inexperienced, and anyone from his own Level Two class didn’t likely stand a chance against the burly Myrkonian boy. Cego looked to his teammates, and they all seemed to be doing the same calculations.

Memnon raised his hand and a chorus of student voices took to the air.

But unlike the Myrkonians’ name choice, there was nearly no discord among the Lyceum students. They had already reached the same pitch. The same name. A name that rang loudly across the Citadel’s grounds, like a bell being struck.

Cego.

“Cego of the Deep, Level Two, step forward toward the Circle,” High Commander Memnon said.

Cego looked at his companions from up on big Joba’s shoulder. They returned his wide-eyed stare; though, they did not look so surprised. In fact, Cego realized, both Knees and Abel had called out his name along with the vast majority of the Lyceum students who surrounded them. Of course, Joba hadn’t said a word, but as he hefted Cego off his shoulder and placed him gently on the ground, the huge boy nodded his head in agreement.

“Looks like you be getting yourself into it again, my friend.” Knees slapped Cego’s shoulder.

“But… why?” Cego asked, feeling dazed and a little sick to the stomach.

“You know why they be choosing you,” Knees responded. “After what happened last year during the challenges, you be something of a legend here.”

Of course, Cego knew why he’d been chosen. For the entire first semester, the school had been abuzz about the now infamous phenomenon that had occurred during a match last year. Doragūn, they had begun to call him. A word in ancient Tikretian to describe the unique serpentine flux that had been burned onto Cego’s arm that day. It was a day Cego had tried to forget; he’d become an incarnation of combat, sending a fellow student badly injured to the medward and another nearly to the grave.

Still, why hadn’t they picked a Level Three or Level Four student to fight the Myrkonian boy? There were plenty who had far superior combat skills to Cego. In fact, in some of the intralevel challenges over the past semester, those very students had bested him in the practice Circles. He wasn’t even close to the top of his class leaderboard this year; that spot was held firmly by the mysterious boy Kōri Shimo.

“I can’t… What if someone else takes my place?” Cego asked helplessly.

“Doesn’t work that way, my friend,” Knees said as he started to prod Cego forward into the crowd. “They all called your name. Memnon spoke your name. High commander of the Citadel called you. No turning back now, unless you want to skip out on the Lyceum like your man Murray.”

Cego started to protest but realized Knees was right. There was no turning back now. He started to push his way through the crowd. Students recognized him as he walked past, patting his back and calling his name.

A strong hand grabbed his shoulder just as he was almost through to the clearing. Gryfin Thurgood.

“Cego.” The broad-shouldered purelight boy met his eyes. “Do your thing. We may fight for position during the semester, but on this one, we’re all behind you.”

Those were the first words Gryfin had said to Cego since the boy had been released from the medward. Cego nodded and moved into the open square.

The Grunts had dragged out a plain auralite Circle, the least reactive of any of the elements. Several bluelight spectrals were hovering over the surface of the steel like bees buzzing a calasynth poppy.

Rhodan Bertoth crouched within the Circle, shaking his head and whipping his long braids back and forth. He touched one hand to the stone below him and looked up at Cego as he approached.

The northern boy was bigger than he’d appeared from a distance. At least as wide as Dozer, with thickly muscled legs that looked like they were made for explosive movement. His tattoos shimmered with frosty blues and whites across his pale skin as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

A chill ran through Cego’s body. He felt weary. Alone, despite the friends he knew he had in the crowd. Cego felt something missing, a pit in his stomach since last year, even before Murray or Sol had left.

Cego removed his light cloak and dropped it to the floor outside the Circle. At least he was already wearing his blue Level Two second skin. And he’d stretched his body when he’d woken, as was his ritual. Not too bad for prep, but Cego certainly hadn’t been expecting to fight in front of the entire school, council, and foreign delegation, for the honor of his nation, at the drop of a bit.

He stepped within the Circle and felt the faint hum of auralite, the hairs on the back of his neck standing. As expected, Cego’s left arm began to buzz.

It was a strange feeling: almost like his entire arm was vibrating, though when he looked down, nothing was moving. Also unmoving was the Doragūn flux tattoo that had been burned into Cego’s arm during the phenomenon last year. For weeks, the serpentine flux had pulsed with vibrant energy, up and down Cego’s arm, as if it were a separate entity from the rest of his body. But eventually, the flux had faded. It had become dull and lifeless. The dragon now remained dormant; it just gave Cego a strange buzz when he stepped within a Circle.

Cego took a deep breath as he watched the spectrals rise to the center of the Circle, condensing to focus their light on the combatants.

Bertoth bellowed and charged like a wild tusker just released on its captors. The boy’s hands and feet exploded off the ground to drive him forward.

Cego barely managed to dive away, launching into a shoulder roll on the hard surface. He immediately regretted the decision. Darkin’ stone. Cego was used to fighting on the more forgiving canvas in the Lyceum’s practice Circles.

Bertoth whirled around and sprang toward Cego again, this time launching a flying punch. The boy was sharp. Cego barely turned his jaw to roll with the strike as the Myrkonian followed with a thudding hook to the body.

Cego covered up to block two quick shots to the head as he retreated on his heels. He’d faced opponents like Bertoth before, those constantly attacking, leaving no room for any counters.

Offense combats offense, Murray-Ku had once said.

Cego waited for another of Bertoth’s punches and let it nearly take his head off, before weaving to the side and slamming his shin into the boy’s hefty thigh.

Usually, a leg kick like that would slow an opponent down, give them some pause. Bertoth didn’t miss a step. He met Cego’s eyes, smiled, and continued his onslaught.

Dodge, leg kick. Dodge, leg kick. Cego repeated the sequence several times, finally feeling some momentum. But Bertoth didn’t appear to be slowing. The northerner’s legs were like tree trunks.

Don’t stop what’s working, Murray’s voice reminded him again. Don’t let up. Do damage until they figure out a way to defend.

Cego kept chopping at Bertoth’s leg. Same combo, same defense, same kick.

Finally, he felt something give. Bertoth wobbled slightly and Cego moved in with a low kick to finish the job.

But Cego didn’t get the reaction he wanted. Instead, Bertoth dropped levels, caught his foot, and smirked again.

The Myrkonian raised his hand to elevate Cego’s leg and jerked him forward. Cego blinked as Bertoth’s skull careened toward his, the boy’s considerable body weight fully behind it.

The lights went out.

The high commander of the Citadel was shaking.

Memnon wore a heavy cloak to conceal the tremors, but his teeth chattered and sweat poured from his brow. The overcast spring sky hung above the festivities like a grey curtain.

“Not sure why they thought Murray’s boy would be able to take on that northern beast,” Dakar Pugilio slurred from beside Memnon, flask in hand as always. Memnon sat beside two of his lieutenant commanders, Dakar and Callen Albright, as they watched the Northmen consume another barrel of ale.

“They’d been taken by the brat’s little show at the challenges last year,” Albright sneered. “Now they’ll realize what imbeciles they were to be impressed by some lacklight. The Bertoth boy made him look untrained.”

Memnon wiped the sweat from his brow with a gloved hand. “Cego did all right, just was overpowered,” he said weakly.

Dakar turned to Memnon. “High Commander? You doin’ all right? You look like me after putting down too much street food in the Peddler District.”

Memnon steadied himself to stop his jaw from quaking. “Yes, Dakar. I’m fine. Just caught something airborne, likely.”

“Albion Memnon,” Dakar said, slapping the high commander on the shoulder. “Sick! Now, there’s something new. Don’t think in all the time we served together I saw you less than splendid a single day.”

As drunk as Dakar was, the commander of PublicJustice was right. Memnon was lying.

“Look at those barbarians,” Callen Albright whispered in disgust as they watched one particularly large Northman shower his head with golden ale. “Can you remind me again why we’re even considering letting their sort into the Lyceum?”

“They look all right to me,” Dakar responded as he watched the Myrkonians below. “Right Grievar there. They know how to fight. They know how to drink. Who’d you like, Albright? Some more sniveling cowards to join our ranks like what you turned up so far leading Scouts?”

“Just because these brutes are strong doesn’t mean they’ll do us any good as Knights,” Callen spoke rapidly. “Especially if they don’t know how to keep to regulation and rule. Who is to say their brood will even decide to come on as Knights if they graduate? The only thing these Northmen are known for beyond drinking themselves stupid is their fierce tribal loyalty. I predict they deplete our resources before heading back to the Ice swollen with the secrets they’ve stolen.”

“I’ve spoken with Tharsis,” Memnon said flatly. “We’ve made a pact, and I trust the man to honor it.”

“Honor